Auteur Theory Of Film Authorship

Film authorship, or auteurism, is a way in which film can be categorised according to the stylistic and narrative elements of the director. Auteur theory usually attributes the creation of a films artistic style solely to the director. Film authorship can be explored as a commercial, textual, or critical category as explained below in relation to the films of director David Lynch.
The concept of the director as “auteur” was brought about in an article by French film critic Alexandre Astruc featured in the magazine “Cahiers du Cinema” in 1948. The article introduces the idea of the director as the primary “author" of a particular film as identified through a consistency of visual and thematic style in relation to said directors previous work
The idea’s around commercial auteurism are often viewed in a negative light, as if the artistic or textual side of auteur filmmaking is dead and the commercial has taken over, or as Corrigan says “auteurs have become increasingly situated along an extra textual path in which their commercial status as auteurs is their chief function as auteurs” (105). Some directors play into this view, such as Quintin Tarantino, who is known to display frequent acts of un-ashamed self-promotion in the name of his films (Todd 32). On the other hand, directors like David Lynch try to avoid this publicity and still end up having a public persona thrust upon them through advertising campaigns and promotional
He achieves this effect through his extravagant and easily recognisable mise-en-scene that often includes wide open spaces, deep colours, and almost monster-movie effects in the case of Eraserhead. Lynch can be categorised textually through his consistent use of close up shots, particularly of eyes and mouths and use of jarring, loud sounds. Lynch can also be recognised through his motifs, particularly in Lost Highway and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. In the case of Lost Highway, it was a musical leitmotif that accompanied the ‘mystery man’ character to bring a sense of evil and ill intensions to the audience. Whereas Twin Peaks focused more on the visual motif of Agent Coopers dreams, during the film the audience would be thrown into a scene that seemed out of place, with dead characters alive and seemingly random snippets of dialogue, however the visual clues such as the read curtains and formal attire helped the audience to recognise that the scene was taking place in Coopers dreams, not the ‘real world’. These elements float through Lynch’s whole body of work and leave a mark of textual